The program, however, is expensive, and the learning curve required is quite steep. What you can do is get a feel of how things work (lots of tutorials on the web), then buy some projects (After Effects templates) from sites like www.revostock.com and www.videohive.net . Just replace the texts and the images and you're all set to go.

If you just want a video with nice, albeit formulaic, effects, then try www.animoto.com . Really easy to use.

If you want more control over the video you want to create, then you can try common video editing programs like Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas Pro, and even the free Windows Movie Maker.

Better yet, if you can upload your photos/videos somewhere I can download them, PM me the link, and give me around 2 to 3 hours, I can try to make a movie trailer-type of video for you, albeit without the Matrix effects, for the price of, say, a testimonial?

There are more, of course, and I'm sure a lot of people will chip in their suggestions.

A very easy way, (at least for me ) is to layout the sequence of images using GIMP. Assign those images, which are really 'layers', a timeline to show frame by frame in the trailer. Typically 70 milliseconds per frame if it's an animated sequence. The frames you want to show for longer times just adjust the timeframe, say 3000 milliseconds for a 3 second exposure.

So let's say you now have 120 frames (layers in GIMP) just go to Filters>Animation>Playback and watch your frames in a movie.

You can take that 'movie' and screen capture it in Camtasia or Camstudio, as an example, and use that for your trailer. Just add any additional video you want as the actual footage in Camtasia, et al.

Of course, you'll need some proficiency in both GIMP and your screen capture software.

I have an older version of the program and use it a lot for photos to video transfers. But you can also upload video. It will automatically put the types of effects you want and match it to the music. Kinda cool stuff.

Hey! sounds like exciting stuff,
Do you have a Mac available? Because if you do some great programmes are Final Cut Pro and a simpler version of iMovie which has really good effects and is quite straight forward do edit on!

The program, however, is expensive, and the learning curve required is quite steep. What you can do is get a feel of how things work (lots of tutorials on the web), then buy some projects (After Effects templates) from sites like www.revostock.com and www.videohive.net . Just replace the texts and the images and you're all set to go.

If you just want a video with nice, albeit formulaic, effects, then try www.animoto.com . Really easy to use.

If you want more control over the video you want to create, then you can try common video editing programs like Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas Pro, and even the free Windows Movie Maker.

Better yet, if you can upload your photos/videos somewhere I can download them, PM me the link, and give me around 2 to 3 hours, I can try to make a movie trailer-type of video for you, albeit without the Matrix effects, for the price of, say, a testimonial?

There are more, of course, and I'm sure a lot of people will chip in their suggestions.

This is the absolute best way to get the style you are looking for. I second this advice. Check out the youtube link in my avatar to the left. Its a small sampling of the stuff you can do with After Effects. I do exactly what Colleen said for my clients, find a suitable template they like, they purchase, I customize it to their liking, re-render a finished mp4 or flv file rinse and repeat. You could do it yourself sure, but AE is $1k program & the Video CoPilot stuff is a few hundred also. Most of my clients don't want to be bothered so the just send the work my way.

To be honest my first recommendation is using Animoto (DOT) com - But if you only want the Matrix effect then just outsource it like Marc Milburn suggested.

There are other alternatives such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Pinnacle Studio and others but then one question arise in my mind, do you have enough skills to pull this off? If not, outsource it and remember these software are all expensive.